NO PLT
by Lance Ruhiru
Summary: StanCartman. Wherein Cartman can't begin to imagine it, and Stan can't stop.


The nice thing about slogging three miles home in the snow (_up_hill) is that it gives you ample time to think. Might as well look on the bright side, y'know, now that I've lost my mind. Which is actually what I'm mulling over while I toil up the incline: which event (series of?) it was that so corroded my mental processes that, in a fit, I confessed the extent of my interest in Cartman to Cartman—which is, incidentally, the reason that I am now tramping toward home instead of riding.

Confused? Me too. Seems like if there were only one talent awarded to each person—and Greg Mathis had already gotten the bullshit detector—mine would be having sexual crises. Why _Cartman?_ I don't know. It could have been a simple lack of alternatives. Between Kenny's increasing absense and Kyle's increasing distance, Cartman was the only viable option.

More than anything, though, I think it was Cartman's car. Cartman's pride in owning a car was, everyone felt, disproportionate to how much the car deserved. It looked like a piece of scrap metal, the kind of car that was typically discarded on road sides or stranded at the old drive-in theater—in fact, the rumor was that was how Cartman came to possess the vehicle. The paint was peeling on the hood. There was a sticker on the bumper so sun bleached that no one could make out the emblem. The upholstery had been lacerated in the back seat and the padding was spilling out. The passenger's seat was lacking a seat belt. The decisive point: no one found it impressive, so Cartman derived no satisfaction from his rodomontade.

It was most likely his unsated need to brag, then, that made him accept my request for a ride home after my tae kwon do sessions let out. For fifteen minutes every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday night I was his captive spectator, bound to entertain his vainglory under threat of being kicked out into the snow.

For most, torment. But not for me. My case was unique because Cartman never had a reason to hate me, personally, as he had a rationale to abhor everyone else. His only grievance was my friendship with Kyle, and his animosity toward me directly corresponded with my proximity to "the Jew." When it was just the two of us, alone, in his car, Cartman was as friendly as he is capable.

And I liked the car. It had a working heater and it got me to my destination—which was all I really cared about, and that's what I especially miss now—but other things as well: a Buddy Christ idol on the dashboard, forgotten fast food containers of all nationalities on the floor, junk food in the glove compartment, and a half-empty box of condoms under the seat. "Well I don't have empty beer bottles to piss into like your drunk dad, do I?" had been his rather hostile response when I'd teased him about the aftermost.

The space was very _Cartman_, really, and it grew on me like his one-sided dialogue. Cartman's favorite topic was himself, and the latest extension of himself was his automobile. "It can drive over any terrain," he told me after I got my green belt. "Rock, water, hippie..."

And, a week ago, when I left the community center to find Cartman parking sideways over both handicapped spaces, I found the real reason Cartman so highly valued the old car he owned: the custom license plate, NO PLT.

"I can park _ANYWHERE_. Fire lanes, driveways... sometimes I drive around looking for a No Parking sign just to park there. Yeah, yeah, the pigs write tickets, but when they write down my license plate the computer assumes it means No Plate, so I never _get_ any tickets because they can't track me down."

I think... yeah, that was it. That was what so attracted me to Cartman, that unbridled intellect. He thought of things no one else would have, and I came to think of him in a way no one else did.

... And when I admitted it to him, he couldn't wrap his head around it. 'Stan' and 'sex' are so far removed in his mind that the joining of them was inconceivable.

So now I'm without a ride, trudging home... and, there, is the loud, annoying horn on Cartman's car. He pulls over, opens up the door, and barks, "Get in."

I get in, then I rip off my mittens and hold my nude hands over the heater. The radio DJ announces, amid static, the furtherance of their "classic 80's love songs," and moments later _Dead Ballerina_ commences.

I play with the zipper on the backpack in my lap for a lengthy stretch of road, but ultimately I have to ask: "Aren't you going to taunt me about this?"

Cartman scowls at the pavement ahead. "... You're such an asshole, Stan."

Um, what?

"You have to go and get a faggy crush on the one person I can't rip on you for."

_Frown_.

"So I thought about it, and instead I'm going to exploit the situation. Make you carry my stuff like my own personal pack mule (I always wanted one), perform inconvenient favors, give me things, whatever I think up."

Did he just speak in parenthesis?

"So I guess it's okay for you to harbor your sick little fagcrush until I've exhausted any and all use of it."

This is the best response I think I can hope for, and I squint out the window. Lucky Cartman picked me up; it's starting to snow. "Thanks for the ride, by the way."

"Try not to get your faggenes on the seat."

"'Genes' or 'jeans'?"

"Neither."


End file.
